Robin Bromby From:The Australian July 20, 201111:12AM
HERE are two developments for readers who are following the increasingly busy Indonesia gold story.
Over the past year or two, investor wariness regarding Indonesia has been abating. There are several reasons: memories of the Bre-X scandal have faded, the mining legislation has been made friendlier for foreign companies and - most importantly - good discoveries are being made. In an era when high-grade gold discoveries in Australia are becoming rare, the money moves to places where those discoveries can still be made.
And Indonesia has some deposits - Grasberg in West Papua, with an astonishing 120 million ounces of gold, Batu Hijau at 12m ounces and Tujuh Bukit with its 14m ounces.
Hartleys has put a ?speculative buy? on Augur Resources (AUK), which has seen a recent price spike to 32 cents. Analyst Mike Millikan puts a 12-month target price of 51c on the stoc
The company is focused primarily on exploring and developing its advanced copper and gold projects, Wonogiri and Jampang. Recent drilling at the former intersected 215m at 0.7 grams/tonne gold and 0.2 per cent copper starting from a depth of 40m. Millikan said this, when combined with previous results, demonstrates consistent mineralisation over broad intervals, highlighting the potential for bulk tonnage, open-pit working. He expects the company to be re-rated on the back of future good drill results.
West Wits Mining (WWI) is now on track to complete the acquisition of the Derewo River gold project, 110km north-west of the huge Grasberg mine in West Papua. This project was to have been the flagship of an initial public offering through the Newcastle Stock Exchange, but a land dispute and the GFC intervened. Now it is being backed into West Wits, a company with a market cap of just $8 million but promising gold projects in South Africa.
WWI says the Derewo River exhibits many of the early-stage similarities with substantial Papua New Guinea discoveries such as Porgera, Edie Creek, Wau and Mt Kare. It is raising $3.5m through BGF Equities, the majority of which will be used in West Papua with the aim of near-term gold production from nugget-rich placer deposits.
PSP Price at posting:
5.4¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
